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Sure, but you could say that about any fire where a bunch of people died. There are always "bigger problems" or else there wouldn't be a fire.
The point is, since it was deliberate, the person could almost as easily blocked both stairs. It's not comparable to an accidental fire that potentially impress a single staircase
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Is this basically subsidizing a slightly higher survival rate for a relatively few number of fires with a significant loss of space for everyone?
yeah. it is. but only in the same way that the prohibition of tetraethyl lead merely subsidized a slightly smaller amount of brain damage for relatively few children at the significant cost of the cheapest anti-knock agent known to mankind seriously, who is pushing this weird anti-fire-code agenda and why is it in slate
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The problem is that you can't track how many disasters were prevented by having two means of egress, so I cant imagine there are real statistics on that I hate the space argument because its a money argument, not a real quality of life issue - make the building 1 floor taller, or don't cram your residents just because you wanted to milk 4 apts instead of 3 on a floor.
> The problem is that you can't track how many disasters were prevented by having two means of egress, so I cant imagine there are real statistics on that Why wouldn't you be able to compare statistics from the US to any other country that doesn't have that rule?
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> Presumably - construction materials + fire fighting methods have improved dramatically in that time so buildings are much safer now. I wouldn't be so sure. Fire prevention methods have improved, but instead of booking the safety gains, this has been seen as a reason to allow wooden structures that previously would not have been legal to build (the famous 5-over-1).
FWIW fire deaths have gone down by half since the 70s. Perhaps you could attribute this to fire alarms or better automatic sprinklers but overall this is a very good trend given population trends. I'm also fairly certain that better fire retardant materials are used now and that's why wooden structures are allowed. Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trend-in-US-fire-deaths-...
There's no evidence that people who ride in cars are safer than people who ride in school buses (which have no seatbelts or airbags).
When the hallway is on fire and the only option is the stairs behind you, I really doubt you'll care about the space 'wasted' on them. And in response to Grenfell, the argument is tenants don't like fire drills; just wow. Eventually everyone forgets the reason for regulations...is there a named law for this phenomenon?
A dozen extra staircases wouldn’t have done much to save people in Grenfell tower. They were instructed to stay in place, because when building regulations are followed, that’s the safest place to be. The problem with Grenfell was that building regulations had been violated, at which point, all bets about safety are off.
Is “stay in your flat while the building burns down around you” a common fire safety plan in the UK? Because that seems scary as hell. And also negligent.
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The point is, since it was deliberate, the person could almost as easily blocked both stairs. It's not comparable to an accidental fire that potentially impress a single staircase
I disagree that they could have done this just as easily. One person can only guard one way.
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FWIW fire deaths have gone down by half since the 70s. Perhaps you could attribute this to fire alarms or better automatic sprinklers but overall this is a very good trend given population trends. I'm also fairly certain that better fire retardant materials are used now and that's why wooden structures are allowed. Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trend-in-US-fire-deaths-...
Battery powered smoke detectors as we now know them came out in the 70s.
Just think of how much smaller cars could be if we removed seatbelts and airbags! There's no evidence that people who ride in cars are safer than people who ride in school buses (which have no seatbelts or airbags).
A stairway is going to take up a lot more space in a building than seatbelts and airbags are. By my estimation my apartment building would lose over 10% of its living space by doubling its amount of staircases.
However, I doubt that it would make a big difference in the cost of housing itself. It seems to me that housing is pricey because it's an investment rather than the labor cost being prohibitive.
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A dozen extra staircases wouldn’t have done much to save people in Grenfell tower. They were instructed to stay in place, because when building regulations are followed, that’s the safest place to be. The problem with Grenfell was that building regulations had been violated, at which point, all bets about safety are off.
I could see a layperson like me thinking “yeah, thick concrete and fire doors; you’ll never need to fully evacuate”. I would expect architects, fire marshals, city planners, and other experts to see the obvious problem with this. Or at least one of them. It’a a single building. How do you build a plan around never needing to evacuate the place? It seems straightforward and appropriate to support a full evacuation str…
There’s certainly scenarios in which you might need to evacuate, like a bomb threat, but we are speaking about internal fire, in which case there’s more danger in hundreds of people fleeing in panic down stairs (whether that’s 1 stair case or 2) than staying inside.